


hells kitchen

by morellos



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Bonding, Brotherly Love, Cooking, Gen, Knives, Non-Graphic Violence, Non-Linear Narrative, Unhealthy Relationships, cooking brings people together, underground ring fighter atsumu mentions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:42:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27161311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morellos/pseuds/morellos
Summary: or five times osamu cooks for atsumu, and one time atsumu cooks for him.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu & Miya Osamu
Comments: 10
Kudos: 43





	hells kitchen

**Author's Note:**

> the miya twins. cooking - simple domestic motion - put that together and you get hells kitchen.
> 
> special thanks to merm [ [ilybokuto](https://twitter.com/iIybokuto?s=09) ] for giving me the inspiration for this chapter. Pomegranates are comforting, Atsumu thinks so as well.
> 
> hells kitchen is nice to write, as sporadic as updates will be, im publishing this on the first day of my holiday, actually, so i hope i have more time to write this. 
> 
> i understand that preparing a pomegranate is not cooking, but hey, it’s simple, domestic, motion.
> 
> thank you all for reading this chapter, if you enjoy it, please leave a kudos and a comment! i love reading what people have to say :]
> 
> again, thank you, stay safe, and drink lots of water.. 
> 
> – demitri xxx follow my twitter [@vamptenko](https://twitter.com/vamptenko?s=21)

Osamu loves his brother very much, despite their differences.

Sometimes, his weariness is mistaken for hate, for _distaste_ , rather than the bone-marrow deep worry that comes with having a twin brother like Atsumu. 

His worry peaks on the nights the other boy comes home with bruises on his body, cuts and scratches running over his torso like train tracks, paths leading to the heart and to the hate inside of him. 

  
It’s scary, it’s terrifying even, because Osamu is not his brother, he does not have to see blood and violence each night, doesn’t have to give himself to the underworld to be able to afford electricity and heating and school.

Osamu sets down his textbook, and picks up the antiseptic. 

There's a crease in his forehead that isn't mirrored on Atsumu's, there's a scar on his hand that Atsumu doesn't have. 

He takes peace in knowing that Atsumu doesn't have a scar like that. _Yet_. There’s always a chance he might slip up.

The cotton bud glides over his skin nicely, and now Atsumu barely winces. That shouldn't be comforting but it is. It's sad sometimes, when the lights are down low and Atsumu comes home with more money and a bloodied smile, that he feels more pain in this motion than in the crash of a fist against his jaw. 

He's glorious, Osamu thinks, that's the issue - _burning and bright_. It leaves him burnt and raw, glory makes you more vulnerable behind closed doors. 

"Hey," Osamu says, hands shaking, heart aching, the breath in his lungs trembling terribly, plays against his ribs like it's a xylophone. "You hungry?" 

Food brings people together. It brought their father _home_ and their mother _peace_. It brought Osamu _purpose;_ there is no question of what to do with his hands if his brother is hungry. 

Cooking is enjoyable now that they have enough money for food, it might be at the expense of their sanity, but macaroni with cheddar tastes better than the sodium filled instant ramen Osamu used to eat day in and day out.

There's spices in their cupboard, now. Fish in the freezer that used to be void of anything but frozen pizza. 

They've got a fruit bowl. Osamu takes an apple every morning and eats it for breakfast, thinks about the effort that went into buying it, and bites right through the core. 

"Yeah," Atsumu says, voice raw and hands shaking - he never knows what to do with his hands outside of the ring. "Yeah, I'm hungry." 

Pomegranates are not easy to prepare, but it gets easier with time.   
  


Time makes so much easier, Osamu finds. But it breaks so much. He guesses, it depends on how hard the clock wants to strike you.

He makes a slit on the bottom, then another so it forms the shape of a cross, reminiscent of the days they would spend in clean, mahogany-smelling Church pews, hymn books clutched in their hands. 

It's easy to drag the knife down, tip the sharp point into the cutting board and _slam_ the long, silver edge through the fruit. 

It's not the best pomegranate they've brought, but it'll do. 

He repeats the motion, holding one half in his hand as he takes in the red flesh, the bitter white parts. 

Pomegranate smells sharp in their cold kitchen, even sharper when mixed with the smell of antiseptic. Sharper, even, than Atsumu's eyes watching him. 

He slides the knife - too big, too bulky - under the largest bit of red, tips it _up_ , seperates it from the main fruit. 

This is easy now. It's _real_ easy. 

Osamu doesn't know what part of the fruit is comforting to Atsumu, but he's not going to judge on the nights when the lights are low and everything feels just a little too bad to be anything more than a nightmare. 

The red wiggles free, bright _, carmine_ seeds make their way into a bowl, and the process repeats. 

Osamu sets down the husks of white, wipes his hand, and rumadges through the cupboards for the lemon juice he's brought for a cake he never got to bake.   
  


Lemons are expensive - who would have thought that lemons are expensive?

He shakes the bottle once, _twice_ , over the bowl, just to give it the bitterness he knows Atsumu loves. 

He dumps a spoon in, winces at the metallic clang of metal against ceramic, too loud for his ears, and presents it to his brother with less ceremony than needed. 

Atsumu takes the bowl with clumsy, bandaged fingers. Shaking as they hum against Osamu's - a careless touch that leaves him numb and static. 

"Thanks." 

His words sound like cotton, too soft, too fragile, light, like Osamu could snatch them out of the air and break them. 

"Don't thank me," he says, let's it hang in the air, lets it swing like a pendulum, then says: "just come home safe next time."


End file.
